Bongiovi Acoustics unveils miracle DSP chip for car audio
By Darren Murph 
posted Dec 17th 2006 1:16AM
posted Dec 17th 2006 1:16AM
If there were ever a time where we'd need to hear it before we believed it, this would be it. Tony Bongiovi, an audio engineer who's been around the block a time or two (read: he worked with Hendrix), has finally crafted the miracle chip he's been missing for decades. Dubbed the Digital Power Station (DPS, not to be confused with DSP), the microchip is described as a "very sophisticated equalizer," and while it was originally "the size of a refrigerator," he looked to Glenn Zelniker, a specialist in digital signal processing, to program a wee chip to do the same thing. The result is a dynamically programmed microchip based on an off-the-shelf DSP from Freescale Semiconductor, which is housed in special headunits (like JVC's KD-S100) and has more than "120 points of adjustment" to tune the tunes to fill each vehicle perfectly. Reportedly, the chip even turns factory speakers into high-fidelity drivers, as it calculates the dimensions of the vehicle and the abilities of the cones while outputting the audio. The JVC unit will cost "between $700 and $1,000 installed," since you'll have to schedule an appointment with your service department to get the correct software installed for your make and model, but we'd suggest a trial listen before you plunk down your one large.[Via PhysOrg]
Cute but limited, to be very frank. This thing requires you to use the factory speakers. That makes it more like a gimmick to get people into the full-service dealerships than anything else. You want bass but the factory speakers are paper cones with no enclosure? You're out of luck. You want clear treble but the factory speakers won't push anything over 16,500? Out of luck. Bottom line, there is a limit to what any form of DSP can do. It can't change the inherent physical limits of the speakers. All it can do is modify the source so those limitations aren't as apparent. Read the blurb on their page which claims they will give bass response without the need for an amp or enclosure. What BS! Rear deck speakers don't have enclosures which means the entire trunk is the enclosure. What happens to the shape of this enclosure when things are placed in the trunk? Riiiight, it changes shape. Why are subwoofers deparate from woofers? Answer: wavelength. The only way to get longer wavelengths from speakers is a proper enclosure. (Bose created a very sophisticated folded tube enclosure for the wave radio.) This thing seems more like those DSP add-ons for media players like WinAmp than what it claims to be.
well, he certainly doesn't look too thrilled.
Isn't he Jon Bon Jovi's cousin?
He is. I actually read about this in the news close to 2 weeks ago... it seems interesting.
Please tell me his last name isn't pronounced "Bon Jovi". If it is, count me out.
Yes, Jon BonJovi's cousin. Also Owner of the world famous Power Station recording studio. Also related to the guy who played Juan Epstein on Welcome Back Kotter.
It immediately makes everything you play on it sound thin and nasal, then in a few years you'll completely deny ever having purchased one but your friends will see the box in your closet one day and ridicule you forever.
Yeah, that's a great product.
"Damn these kids today and their 'pimped out' stereos, where's the AM button on this new-fangled gizmo anyway?"
Am I the only one to notice that despite the fact that they specifically told us in the article that this is DPS, and not DSP, that they referred to it as DSP in the headline?
Other than that, its a cute idea, but I'm not paying $1000 for it.
Has anyone ever heard of the alpine f1 (http://www.alpine.com/e/products/f1/index.html)? I'm a car audio guy. For example, I won a regional sound quality competition at Nassau Coliseum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassau_Veterans_Memorial_Coliseum) a few years back. Anyway, you can't use factory speakers if you want good sounds. It just doesn't happen. They can't support the proper frequency ranges. The alpine f1 came out a few years ago and it dynamically calculates how the music sounds as it bounces off the insides of your car and comes back to the unit. It times each driver properly and adjusts things on the fly. Essentially what this guy is claiming. And you can't do it with factory speakers if you want it to be any good. You need focals or morels in addition to a good sound processor. Putting a suit on a monkey doesn't stop him from throwing his own feces.
out of all the people in the comments, raise your hand if you have actually heard the system. whats that, no one? What really sucks in todays world of technology is that if you don't like it, don't like the person or the company that made it, or never took the time to try it out you automatically say, "impossible, that sucks, i wouldn't give that to my grandmother." I for one have meet this man, and have listened to his product. I have worked in the 12 volt industry for 12 years now and this is a good product. While it wont give the same bass output as 2 12 inch subs, it does however make you speakers perform better than they would ever would with out this now matter how much tweaking you think you can do. So before you pan someone else's hard work, take a moment and give it a chance.
for $700 - $1000 I think I can do better for my money than trying to polish a turd. Stock factory car stereo speakers, by nature, generally suck. If this thing was ~$100 I'd maybe consider trying it out but for that kind of cash I'd be inclined to go with a decent pair of aftermarkets and a power amp. I don't think anyone here is making fun of the guy or putting him down either. It's just humor, relax.
for that price i know some guys who'll get your car straight
i have concert speakers in my suburban 2 cerwin vega afterburner subs powered by 2 planet audio big bangs
and yes thier doing it
just get a decent head unit and you can do this same shit with any full range equilizer like i used to have an old dj 19"rack mixer hooked into my head unit but now im using a simple laptop and 24bit addons sound card and im off i can control everthing from various software
i know all that sounds expensive but all you really need from my setup is a laptop and the proper software trust me it works and plus you can use it as a mp3 player and dvd player for your screens
as for speakers for my highs i only use components i only have coaxial 10x4's and some old sony xplodes in the doors they get down off my little 400 watt 2 ohm american pro amp
anyway people just get good equiptment and install them properly and hear the diffrence
I agree with pcbuilderchris...
This appears to be just a preset multiband equalizer that has been tuned to the audio-characteristics of the vehicle's passenger compartment and factory speakers.
The part of the technology that is cool is that this is all being done with a small dsp (DPS is the name of the product) that could ultimately be put in all factory radios. Of course you will get better sound with better components, but at the low end this will probably make a huge difference.
Ummm, Sony CLIEs have had DSP chips in them for a very long time to handle the audio processing. They worked wonders. I mean you could browse the web on a 123MHz CLIE UX50, listen to music and chat all over WiFi and your song won't studder or stop at all. Your device may slow down but the song would keep going. Unlike the Palm handhelds today that studder music whenever you turn on WiFi or access a webpage. I feel like I downgraded. :(
If it's a revolutionary breakthrough, why's he so darn angry?